At the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, Geneva we can probe our Universe moments after the Big Bang to tackle the questions about its origin, evolution and composition. These include: What is the origin of mass? What constitutes dark matter? How many dimensions of space and time do we live in? Why is the universe composed of matter and not antimatter? The answers have the potential of altering our perception of how Nature operates at the fundamental level.

The discovery in July 2012 of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), one of the most important of this new century, completes the particle content of the standard model of particle physics, a theory that describes our visible universe in exquisite detail.

This talk will briefly look into the evolution of our universe from the Big Bang, the fundamental particles and their interactions, and the long journey to the discovery of the Higgs boson. The CMS experiment at the LHC will be used as example to outline some of the technological and engineering challenges.

It is known that our current understanding of matter and forces is incomplete. Search is being made for new fundamental physics that should illuminate the road ahead to the cherished goal of a unified theory of all physical phenomena in Nature. The prospects, especially those related to the examination of the properties of the Higgs boson with much larger data samples, will be outlined.

The talk will also touch upon the societal impact of fundamental scientific research, CERN and the LHC.